


Return to the Fold

by L_autore_Passionale



Series: Batfam Week 2020 [4]
Category: Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, DCU, DCU (Comics), Nightwing (Comics)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Gen, Post Crime Syndicate, Post Spyral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-03-14
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:21:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23106901
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/L_autore_Passionale/pseuds/L_autore_Passionale
Summary: Dick bit his lip as he hesitated outside of the living room where his brothers gathered.Should he go in? Damian had invited him for a night of video games and food, intending for them to take a break from their vigilante jobs. It had sounded good, when Damian had told him about it. A chance for Dick to be with his brothers while they did something fun. A chance for Dick to surround himself with the people he had missed while he was gone.And there was the crux of the problem. He’d been gone. “Dead.” For all he’d really been dead for a little while at the beginning, when Lex had shoved a pill in his mouth and suffocated him, he had not been dead when he’d gone undercover. He’d lied to his brothers.He’d lied to his brothers, and now he had to pay the price.
Series: Batfam Week 2020 [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1654126
Comments: 6
Kudos: 247
Collections: Tales from the Cave





	Return to the Fold

**Author's Note:**

> Batfam Week 2020 Prompt, Day 5: Insecurities
> 
> I'm so sorry for posting this late! I do have something written for today’s prompt, but won’t get to post it yet. I’m hoping I can do that soon. :)

Dick bit his lip as he hesitated outside of the living room where his brothers gathered. Laughter rang out from the room, loud and sharp—Jason—and low and mellow—Tim. Damian tutted, amusement in the sound. 

Should he go in? Damian had invited him for a night of video games and food, intending for them to take a break from their vigilante jobs. It had sounded good, when Damian had told him about it. A chance for Dick to be with his brothers while they did something _fun._ Stress free. A chance for Dick to surround himself with the people he had missed while he was gone.

And there was the crux of the problem. He’d been gone. “Dead.” For all he’d really been dead for a little while at the beginning, when Lex had shoved a pill in his mouth and suffocated him, he had not been dead when he’d gone undercover. He’d lied to his brothers. 

(And oh, Dick’s nightmares were still so vivid after all this time. He’d even woken that morning with a strangled gasp as he dreamed of a calloused hand covering his nose and mouth, of his heartbeat thundering in his ears as it slowed...slowed…... _slowed……..._ )

He’d lied to his _brothers,_ and now he had to pay the price. The bruise on his cheek was finally fading, but Tim and Jason had yet to thaw towards him. Not that he could blame them. You reap what you sow, the saying went, and he had sowed a whopper of a lie.

The bag of goodies he brought for the night crinkled a little in his grasp, and he looked down at the excess of gummy bears (Jason’s favorite) and Red Hots (Tim’s favorite) and M&M’s (Dami’s). Another laugh filtered out of the doorway, and Dick’s heart twisted. He’d _missed them._ So much. All he’d wanted, when he had woken in the cave after his torture at the Crime Syndicate’s hands, aching and bruised and _broken,_ was his family. It was a comfort he’d been denied as he was pushed into an undercover role he was not mentally fit enough to handle. Not...not after what he’d gone through.

When he’d finally returned to his family, it was to become their verbal punching bag as they vented their own frustration and hurt. Dick understood why, he really did. But Dick...Dick needed something else. He needed _them_. He needed support and help and comfort as he recovered from his time with Spyral.

“No, nononono! Jay!” Tim protested, laughter in his voice. “You’re such a cheater!”

Dick wasn’t welcome here. Heart sinking at the realization, he felt tears prick his eyes. He’d squandered his chance at being included with his brothers when he had lied to them. Joining them now would only make them uncomfortable. 

Jaw clenching around his helpless anger and hurt, Dick stepped back and set the bag of candy on a table outside of the room. Another protest, from Damian this time, and Dick spun on his heel and strode away, leaving his heart behind with some of the most precious people in his life.

…

Damian paused the game, his head tilting to the doorway.

“What is it, Little D?”

“I thought I heard something,” he answered Jason. He pushed off the couch and padded into the hallway just as the sound of the front door closing reached his ears. 

“Someone was here?” Tim asked, he and Jason following behind him. “And the alarms didn’t go off?”

“Richard,” Damian sighed, opening the bag and pulling out the candy his brother must have brought over. But if he’d come this far, why had he left? He frowned and looked up at his brothers. 

Jason shifted, looking both angry and guilty, while Timothy rubbed his face with a sigh.

“Come on,” Jason said. “We’d better catch him before he gets too far.”

“But why did he leave? I don’t understand.” His ears burned at the confession, but Jason and Timothy had both proven they would not belittle him when he had a serious question.

“Because he thought he wasn’t welcome here,” Timothy answered, slipping on a pair of shoes.

“But that’s ridiculous. I invited him. Of course he’s welcome!”

“Yeah, but—I’ll speak for both of us, Timbo—the two of us haven’t been the most _inviting_ towards him. I’m pretty angry at what he did, to be honest.”

“Me, too,” Drake said quietly. 

“I understand being angry. I was not happy, myself. But someone we hold as precious, someone we thought lost to us, was _returned_ to us. How can we push him away when we spent that time mourning him? And it is not as though he was off gallivanting around the world—he was working to save our comrades-in-arms!” 

“Yeah, yeah,” Jason grumbled. “I’m allowed to feel angry about what he did.”

Damian felt a little of the tension in his body leave when Jason’s hand rested on his shoulder and squeezed. 

“But you are right, about not pushing him away. Now let’s go bring our brother back in from the cold.”

Tim ushered them out the door and to the stairs, where they jogged down quicker than the elevator would have taken them. They burst out on the ground floor of Jason's apartment building and out the front door, heads swinging one way and then the next as they looked either for Richard or his vehicle. It was Damian who spotted the car, parked in the back of the lot to the north of the building, and the three of them moved quickly.

Damian felt his heart stutter when he saw Richard leaning his head against the steering wheel, his shoulders shuddering. It drew them up short, leaving them to hover near the car, uncertain of their welcome. Damian’s hands folded into tight fists when his brother curled even further into himself, his hands slipping from the wheel to cover his face.

He was weeping, Damian realized. At his side, Timothy’s breath hitched. Jason straightened and moved forward, opening the driver’s side door without any warning. Richard flinched at the interruption, and then when he saw Jason, flinched again. 

“I’m leaving,” he said, his voice hoarse. He held his arms up, _protecting_ himself. “Don’t…. I’m leaving. I didn’t mean to intrude.”

Jason brushed his arms aside and tugged at Richard, pulling him out of the car and ignoring his breathless pleas. And then Richard froze, tears still obvious on his face, as Jason wrapped him in a tight hug.

“Easy, Big Bird,” Jason’s voice rumbled soothingly. 

Damian found his hand wrapped in Timothy’s, the ground shaking under his feet when he saw how distraught Richard was. His always strong, always confident brother, who had _flinched,_ who was _still crying._

Richard’s wide eyes fell on the two of them, shock twisting his face before he shut his eyes and turned his face away. He was stiff in Jason’s arms, obviously uncomfortable. Jason tilted his chin to speak directly into Richard’s ear. Whatever he said made Richard shiver and clutch the front of Jason’s jacket in a white-knuckled grip as he let loose a sound Damian never thought he’d hear from his mentor and brother/father—a high-pitched whine that spoke of a broken heart.

As one, Damian and Timothy stepped forward and wrapped themselves around their two older brothers. What Timothy said next was, like Jason’s words, too quiet for Damian to hear, but he found his brother’s tense, shaking body relax a little. Damian, on the other hand, found any words he wanted to say were not enough and paltry in the face of Richard’s pain. 

Instead, he tilted his head up until he could press a kiss to his brother’s cheek.

It seemed to be the straw that broke the camel’s back, for Richard shuddered again and broke into quiet sobs.

“I missed you all,” he stuttered in-between his sobbing. “All I could think about was how much I wanted to see each of you. How much I n-needed you guys.”

“We missed you, too, Dickie,” Jason murmured. “We missed you so friggin’ much. It was like we’d lost the best parts of ourselves when you were gone.”

“I’m sorry,” he whispered. He rubbed his face against Jason’s shirt and settled his ear over Jason’s heart. “I didn’t want to leave you.”

There was something in the tone of his voice, in the word choice, that set off a warning bell in Damian’s head. Both Tim’s and Jason’s expressions sharpened, whatever Damian had noticed also catching their attention. They glanced at each other, a tilt to Jason’s eyebrow answered by Tim’s short nod. 

“Come,” Damian whispered, tugging at his brothers. “We should go inside. We have...we have games to beat Timothy and Jason at and food to eat. Then, there is a movie about penguins I want to see.”

“I’m not watching _Happy Feet,”_ Jason grumbled, supporting Richard as he wobbled on his feet. 

“As if,” Damian sniffed in contempt. “This is a documentary. It is _respectable._ ”

Richard huffed a short laugh as he scrubbed at his face, and Damian felt a spark of pride that he’d helped lift his brother’s mood that little bit. 

It wasn’t perfect. There were hurt feelings to spare after what they had all gone through, and Damian had an inkling there were many difficult conversations they would need to sit through in the coming days. It _wasn’t perfect,_ but finally, as the four of them—the _brothers—_ walked together into the building, Damian felt hope curl around his heart and ease it from its worried pounding.

They would be okay. No, Damian thought as he burrowed into Richard’s side as they sat on the sofa, Jason and Tim also settling close to them. They would be _better_ than okay. 

When the four of them worked together, there was nothing they couldn’t accomplish.


End file.
